Indeed, the psychedelia of this film (and weirdness in general) is evident throughout almost every part of the film…EXCEPT THERE.

And so I must hesitantly call 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a masterpiece.

Against all odds.

It’s only fitting that the lead child actor who plays Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) was born on Valentine’s Day.

Yes Virginia, perhaps some things are fated.

Highmore is fantastic in a role created by Peter Ostrum.

And though we miss Diana Sowle and her priceless rendition of “Cheer Up, Charlie”, Helena Bonham Carter is quite magnificent in her limited scenes as the cabbage-cutting Mrs. Bucket.

But Tim Burton updates our story considerably to make it more relatable to the Harry Potter generation (and the service-industry pipe dream known as the “third industrial revolution”…for the “adults” in the crowd).

Yes, we needs must only revisit Eliyahu Goldratt’s “business novel” The Goal to remember the shortsighted “local efficiencies” which factory robots can produce.

By the way: there’s a father Bucket. And he runs into a patch of robot trouble.

Updated.

But Tim Burton does not stop there. Whereas the original film focused tentatively on child spies (remember the purloined Everlasting Gobstopper?), the film under review seems to situate itself amidst the full-scale industrial espionage (and, in particular, intellectual property theft) which the United States attributes to China.

But let us pay our respects here.

David Kelly was fantastic as Grandpa Joe. Truly a wonderful performance! And we are sad to have lost his talents in 2012.

-AnnaSophia Robb is appropriately snotty as the overachieving brat Violet Beauregarde [How did Tarantino not hire this girl for his next refried kung-fu film?!?]

-Julia Winter (who strangely has no Wikipedia page) is really special as the mouthy tart Veruca Salt

-and Jordan Fry plays Mike Teevee (though they might as well have gone with “Hacker” Mike Xbox or some such first-person shooter sobriquet).

And that leaves us with the big dog himself: Johnny Depp.

Stepping into some very big shoes.

Gene Wilder. Taken from us just months ago. A truly magical being.

And so Depp and Burton needed a strategy.

And it appears it was something like, “Ok, let’s make him weirder. Like, lots weirder. Remember those sunglasses Keith Richards wore on Between the Buttons? And the hair like Brian Jones. Prim. Proper. Rocker. Ok, ok…but we want the Salinger recluse thing with some Prince or Michael Jackson oddity. Purple velvet. Ok, yes…we’re getting somewhere.”

Most striking, however, is Depp’s accent. Very Ned Flanders…but possessed by the thoughts of Salvador Dalí.

But the Burton touch shows through. That macabre glee.

A little cannibalism joke here. “Which half of your child would you prefer?”

Oddities.

Though tempered by quick-tongued childlike wonder, Depp is still a rather darker Wonka than Wilder’s fatherly archetype.

Yes, Depp could fit fairly well into Kraftwerk (especially germane had Augustus from Düsseldorf won the grand prize).

Johnny and his purple latex gloves.

Not a touchy-feely Wonka.

Doesn’t even bother to learn the kids names. [there’s only five]

Totally off his rocker.

Makes Gene Wilder’s Wonka seem like Mister Rogers in comparison.

But this is mostly secondary to the success of this film.

Tim Burton evidently didn’t feel making a true family film was beneath him.

And so, perhaps with a bit of inspiration from Wes Anderson, he made an immensely touching picture here.

Charlie Bucket is the kid we need in the world.

The chosen one.

The needle in the haystack.

And it is Wonka’s quest to find such a unique child.

Charlie almost gives up the ticket (sells it) to help his desperately poor family, but one of his four bedridden grandparents must have read Hunter S. Thompson at some point. And so Charlie is convinced to “buy the ticket, take the ride” so to speak.

It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Enter Deep Roy (Mohinder Purba) as ALL (and I mean all) of the Oompa-Loompas.

It is in the short (!) song sequences where Burton’s debt to David Lynch emerges.

Kind of like Danny Elfman’s debt to Tom Waits.

Comes and goes.

Burton, being the mischievous connoisseur of all things dark, manages to make Veruca’s exit an homage to Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren (albeit with squirrels).

Very inventive!

Sure, there’s some crap CGI in this film (not to be confused with the even more insidious Clinton Global Initiative), but it is generally restrained.

At a few points, it gets off the rails and threatens to damage an otherwise fine film.

But I tell you this…there are plot twists here which for someone who has merely seen the first film (like myself) truly baffle and surprise.

And they are touching.

So it is with no reservations that I call this a family film.

Sure, some of the jokes are a bit obtuse.

But the framing story (the Bucket family’s existence) is indescribably magical.

It is then, only fitting, that Christopher Lee be the one to welcome the prodigal oddball Depp.

Which is to say, this film has a sort of false ending…which is inexplicable…and genius.

It is at that moment where the film finds its soul.

Family.

Love.

Humility.

Sacrifice.

Happily, Burton gives us a fairy tale ending in which the young mind can work with the eccentric master…and the eccentric master can once again know what home is like.

First, I owe a deep apology to my fellow bloggers who have continued to follow and support me. I have been swamped with work and embroiled in the current US election. Thank you so much for your kindness! I look forward to graduating with a master’s degree in about a month and hope to “get back on the wagon” of following each and every one of your amazing blogs.

Second, my conscience requires that I addend my previous takes on two very controversial figures: Marina Abramović and Edward Snowden.

As I have continued my research on Ms. Abramović, I am more and more convinced that her dabblings in the occult are not mere innocent instances of artistic expression. I still do not know what role she plays in the increasingly lurid child sex ring which is leaking from NYPD and FBI sources, but her buddies the Podestas (John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign chairman, and his brother Tony) seem more and more solidly “in the tank” as regards genuine sexual abuse of minors, child trafficking, and (even more shocking) ritualistic murder of these same kidnapped children.

I am not saying that the Podestas are guilty of these crimes. I am, however, pointing out that mounting evidence suggests they are part of something which bears this general outline. Also involved is the (likely) Saudi spy Huma Abedin. But the kingpins seem to be the Clintons themselves.

I was a bit dismissive of hysteria when I defended Marina Abramović’s artistic merits. I do still think she is an incredibly gifted artist. But no amount of genius excuses child rape and ritualistic murder of young people. [We shall be discussing here a similarly “brilliant” psychopath: Lex Luthor.]

Quite frankly, Hillary Clinton seems to be a witch in the most literal sense.

Lexi Luthor?

Lexus Luthor?

It was my imperfect knowledge which caused my failure to grasp the bigger picture in the Abramović case (“spirit cooking”, in which the Podesta brothers and John’s wife Mary engaged in presumably a dinner with artist Marina Abramović which likely involved ingesting breast milk, semen, urine, and blood).

But there is more to “spirit cooking”…and more to Marina Abramović.

First, it has been suggested that the TRUEST (most genuine) “spirit cooking” would be, essentially, cannibalism: eating the flesh or organs of spirits (dead children) who are cooked.

Second, Abramović’s references are not anodyne. I cannot get into the details of “spirit cooking’s” connections to Aleister Crowley and Thelema because I am not conversant in such esoteric knowledge. But I can confirm that child sacrifice is an obsession of the ruling elites in at least the US and UK (as evidenced by the opening ceremonies of Bohemian Club meetings near San Francisco which are documented to include a “mock” child sacrifice called “the cremation of care”).

My conclusion that Hillary Clinton truly practices illegal manifestations of magic is partly due to the words of former Clinton family employee Larry Nichols who is on record as saying that Bill Clinton told him that Hillary Clinton would make monthly (at least) treks to California to participate in a witches’ coven. You can bet she wasn’t playing second fiddle at these shindigs!

And so what my readers must understand is that, for these perverse elites, black magic is very real. At the very least, it appears that they are engaged in illegal activities pursuant to these ritualistic leanings. And thus, as stated, my take on Marina Abramović was both uninformed and naïve insofar as occult context goes.

Hillary Luthor.

vs. Superman.

I must make a further confession. I may have done injustice to Edward Snowden to be so skeptical of his aims. The same goes for my suspicion of Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras.

And I’ll tell you why.

The majority of real news we are getting in the USA is thanks to WikiLeaks.

Edward Snowden has certainly been lumped in with Julian Assange.

To my satisfaction, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have proven themselves to be a credible (and priceless) asset for world freedom.

And so perhaps I was too harsh on Snowden.

One thing is certain: we must remember that the eyes are the most easily-fooled of our senses.

So for me to proclaim, as an amateur film critic, that I know the score of Snowden’s veracity should not be taken as gospel truth.

Superman.

Is Edward Snowden the Superman in this whole thing?

Is Assange?

Actually, I would make the case that it is (rather) Donald Trump who is the true Superman on the world stage at the moment.

And it is indeed germane that he be facing off against Hillary Luthor.

And so we have a brilliant movie.

From director Richard Donner.

This is what superhero movies should be like.

Back when CGI didn’t suck (and the Clinton Global Initiative was yet to exist).

Superman brings hope.

To the deepest, darkest, most depressed and forgotten corners of America.

Not insignificant, Superman is a journalist by day.

The names here are blockbuster.

Marlon Brando as Superman’s biological father.

Perhaps James Comey is like Brando’s character Jor-El (who pronounces judgment against insurrectionists but then must acquiesce to the fate of death for he and his wife).

Which is to say, maybe James Comey of the US FBI is an honorable man.

Sure doesn’t seem like it.

But from surrender, a child is borne upon the seas of outer space.

Glenn Ford is excellent as Superman’s adoptive father.

Phyllis Thaxter is wonderful as Superman’s adoptive mother.

Jeff East is very good as the teenage Clark Kent.

Superman is all about the outcast getting his revenge on society…BY DOING GOOD!

Are you an outcast?

Yes.

Me too.

And we all know pain.

The pain of discrimination. Not fitting in. Being the odd man out. The ugly duckling.

We can feel that the world (our little world) doesn’t want us.

And it is tremendously traumatic.

But Superman is a bit like Saint Jude the Apostle: patron saint of lost causes.

Superman speaks to the most lowly among us.

Schizophrenics. Shut-ins. Impoverished. Living in squalor.

Superman lets us dream.

We may have nothing but a VCR. We have never gone on a date, much less had a girlfriend.

The world has forgotten about us.

But Superman gives us hope.

That someone or some thing is going to come along and lift us out of our misery.

The Trump connection is strong.

Doesn’t drink. Doesn’t smoke.

Superman.

The World Trade Center (still standing) in the background (1978).

As Christopher Reeve zips through the New York City sky.

Mr. Reeve is astonishingly good as an actor in this film.

Enter Lois Lane.

Margot Kidder is so charming in this film 🙂

Her skinny little frame never stops moving as she tries to get the latest scoop in her job as a reporter.

But what else does Superman represent?

He represents the good cops who dive into the abyss each night to patrol the unpredictability of our streets.

He represents the good FBI who “damn the torpedoes” and go after the bad guys (and gals) [whomever they turn out to be].

Superman fights crime.

He never lies.

Superman is a protector.

Like the brave Secret Service agents who did a wonderful job shielding Mr. Trump two days ago in Reno from what could have been imminent gunfire.

Supermen are willing human shields.

Defenders.

Like our military.

And Superman does not suffer the deviance of pencil pushers who would try and leverage their brilliance to harm people.

If I was a Hillary supporter, I would compare Trump to Lex Luthor (realtors both).

But sometimes history offers us a counterintuitive option.

Donald Trump, while a realtor, is not out to screw the American public.

He has enough money.

He’s not a sycophant like Hillary.

The famous red “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) hat does not feature Trump’s name on it.

It’s not about him.

It’s about America.

Hillary’s campaign always comes back to her…in a self-serving way.

The ubiquitous H signs and the trite “I’m with her” détournement of a decades-old pop culture phrase.

If Jean-Luc Godard had never made another film after 1983, this one would have been his best ever. It is that good. But perhaps you doubt? Let me tell you why I believe this to be the case.

This may have been the film where Godard really nailed down his mature style. Really, there is no putting a date on such things. He has continued to progress to the current day.

But let us focus on a few salient elements.

Beethoven.

The sea.

One might expect a French (Swiss) director to pick Debussy and call the elements connected (we refer here to the orchestral piece La Mer). But Godard was always very analytical. And so Beethoven is a more natural choice.

But what Beethoven? Which Beethoven? It is the string quartets.

Must it be? It must be. It must be.

Godard began (continued?) to make films more like a composer than a movie director.

The art film genre allowed him to do this. And in many ways he formed and shaped this genre from the beginning.

To call art films a genre is generally not in keeping with standard film criticism practice.

But I don’t care.

If it helps to call it a genre here, then so be it.

But does it help?

It makes no difference (as Rick Danko sang).

But let us not neglect the ocean…the sea.

“I salute you, old ocean,” as Lautreamont said in Maldoror.

Indeed, Godard has some of that proto-Dadaist perversion in this movie. Perverse, as opposed to perverted. Both.

What is remarkable beyond Beethoven and the sea is Godard as an actor.

That’s right, Godard himself plays a prominent role as (what else?) himself.

It is really a caricature of himself. Or is it?

To wit, Godard plays a director who has gone crazy.

Early on we see him in an insane asylum.

There is something slightly frightening and menacing about him from time to time, but generally he is hilarious.

Humor.

This film is replete with humor.

But it is not a comedy.

Sometimes a comedy of errors.

And so, Carmen? Yes, like Bizet. We remember Brahms being so taken with this opera.

Was it the music or was there perhaps an attractive alto in the production?

Alto. Viola in French is alto.

And who is our alto? Only one of the greatest actresses to ever live: Myriem Roussel.

I must at this point beg forgiveness from the universe for not even mentioning her in my review of Passion.

I blame Wikipedia (as I always do).

I admit laziness (as per usual).

Frankly, I knew it was her in Passion by the poolside. It is a small-but-striking role. Mainly because she is nude.

It is all very artistic, yet I see why Godard would cast the beautiful Roussel in revealing roles over the course of several films.

Yet here, Myriem is merely a violist. The viola in my life. Morton Feldman.

But it is neither Godard nor Roussel who carry the bulk of the dramatic action here.

For that we must credit Maruschka Detmers and Jacques Bonnaffé. The acting from these two players is outstanding!

Detmers plays the titular Carmen. Indeed (keeping with the hanging sonority), it is Detmers who spends a fair portion of this movie nude. But, to Godard’s credit, so does Bonnaffé.

But this is not just a gratuitous European pseudo-art film. This is the real thing.

The most beautiful moment occurs during a bank robbery.

A struggle for a gun. A man and a woman. Carmen. She has robbed the bank with a band of professional thieves.

And Joseph (Bonnaffé)…the gendarme responding to the violent robbery.

He leaves his post in front of the bank and exchanges gunfire with the trigger-happy gang.

And so it is that Carmen and Jo (Joseph) struggle for an automatic weapon. Both having been shot.

They crawl over each other. Win at all costs. To lose is death. High stakes now.

And climbing over each other in spurts of faint energy, they abruptly stop and begin passionately kissing.

They give up.

It is the moral.

Ah, but they DON’T give up! They join forces.

And so Joseph goes from cop to thief. All for love.

Lust. Love.

Oh no, I’ve said too much (as Michael Stipe once intoned).

But no…

Carmen needs to pee. Joseph has tied her wrist to his using his necktie. [What kind of gendarme doesn’t have handcuffs?]

And so they stop at a shitty roadside gas station.

The moral of the stop: even France and Switzerland have shitty roadside gas stations.

Away from the tourists. Off the beaten path. Where people actually work for a living.

And we have the most poignant scene. The most bizarre. A fat man has pocketed a jar of baby food (?) and proceeded to the restroom to eat it lustily with his fingers. Put another way, here’s a poor schmuck whose life at this moment (for one reason or another) has been reduced to shoplifting to sustain his life force.

And the poor schmuck gets a treat. Carmen needs to pee. So does Joseph. Joseph won’t untie her. And so she uses a urinal. And the shoplifter continues to make slobbery sounds as he licks his fingers while eating baby food in front of the bathroom mirror…nonplussed by the action. But he sneaks a peak…ah, whatever. He is entirely involved in his “meal.” Somehow this scene makes sense of the whole universe. It is hilarious, disgusting, and believable. The mark of genius is on this film throughout.

I must add one last thing. Just when the strains of Beethoven have become commonplace–just when the crossfaded splosh of waves has been drowned out by our psyches…it is at this point which Godard throws us the most gut-wrenching curveball: “Ruby’s Arms” by Tom Waits. Bonnaffé hugs the TV…resting his weight on the crappy 80s hotel console…and the screen is tuned to snow…static…fuzz…phasing lines of nothingness. Between channels. And as the song plays, Bonnaffé caresses the screen…caresses what might have been.

It is a most touching evocation of lovesickness.

Carmen is fond of repeating the line from the American movie, “If I love you, then that’s the end of you.” She may not work at a cigarette factory nor dance the habanera, but she is still the prototypical femme fatale. Yes, Jo…love is a rebellious bird.

In more ways than one, this film starts silently. Foley artists. A klaxon here and there.

And then all of a sudden we have entered the era of loosely-synched talkies.

It is quite a shock. We realize how much we have come to depend on sound and dialogue.

But this film holds its own as images alone.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how virtually-verbose a moving picture?

John Longden evokes our sympathy in many ways. The jilted lover. And finally, we descend into a dark place with his character Frank Webber.

A bit of gossip gives us all the context we need: these were not the times when a woman could easily claim self-defense in the instance of a rape. In the course of defending herself, Anny Ondra took a life. We take it from context that her promiscuous presence in the room of a man after hours would be looked down upon in a court of law at that time (though that should have nothing to do with a just dispensation of the legal process).

No doubt, Ondra’s character is a prevaricating adventuress, but when it comes down to brass tacks she’s not a floozy at heart. Poor Cyril Ritchard shan’t be painting any more saltimbanques any time soon!

We really don’t see it coming. That is the brilliance of Hitchcock’s mise-en-scène. Mr. Crewe (Ritchard) is as charming as Hoagy Carmichael until he gets a little too frisky.

And so Anny Ondra must walk the foggy streets of London with her beestung lips like Clara Bow meets Raskolnikov.

In an instant Frank goes from law enforcer to wrong side of the law, but it is out of love. He knows.

Enter Donald Calthrop. Oh how the tables turn for his character Tracy. One moment he is smoking the finest cigar…sopping up runny yolk and savoring his blackmailed breakfast. The next he is the prime suspect. As in chess, several moves ahead are needed. Overall, one cannot account for everything. And so this is in some ways the rags to rags story of a criminal named Tracy. To be sure: the wrong man!

Alice (Ondra) nearly turns herself in. She is one telephone call too late. Fate intercedes. It is as if blind justice, with her svelte legs, has sensed the order which must be restored.